As we all have learned in the past three weeks, culture is basically beyond difficult to explain, and even harder to understand, but not impossible. What is impossible though, is escaping culture. Every aspect of our daily lives revolves around culture. What are you going to wear today? Should you eat the tasty Captain Crunch or settle for your healthy Special K? Culture answers your questions. It tells you what you should look like, how you should act, and if you should tell your best friend that you hate her shirt today. All of the objects surrounding us on a daily basis are signs. These signs around us are “read” differently by every individual. It’s how we interpret these “signs” that directs our living existence.
Susan Bordo brings out many interesting points about today’s culture in her article “The Body and Reproduction of Femininity.” I think we are all quite aware of how much influence advertisements have on our lives, considering you can’t walk two feet without running into one. The positions we take on these debates is what defines our culture. Every ad nowadays centers around the idea of improvement. Bordo even emphasizes this idea by stating that “female bodies become docile bodies” (166). I found it very interesting that she pointed out that the more we focus on our bodies, the greater our conviction of never being good enough becomes. Self-modification becomes our main priority, and basically takes over our lives. The products revolving around this idea are supposed to make whomever’s using them feel better about themselves. Enhancement is key in today’s world, and “having it all” is where it’s at. What I found to most interesting, and most true of all, is that female bodies pursuing these perfect ideals, seem to be just as depressed, just as distracted, and just as physically ill as any other plain Jane. This led me to believe that self modification isn’t really about making you feel good about yourself, but rather be accepted by the rest of the population.
All in all, I believe culture in today’s society will never be fully understood. Who are we to judge what’s socially acceptable and what’s not? All we can do is read everything that’s around us, take a position, and define culture.
Hey! I really liked your blog post, I've been trying to understand what it really means to be affected by culture and what we can do to sort of stop trying to live up to everyone else's expectations and not ours. I didn't see culture the way you seen it, well in some ways I did but I didn't think that we couldn't affect culture...I believe we're all aspects of culture whether we like it or not. Culture isn't all about what we actually wear but more or less about the ideas that continously flow (and how we perpetuate the 'cultural cycle' ourselves). I believe we all have a say but like you said, we're content with just standing back, and taking a position. =]
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